Virgin Media O2 is cutting its employee wage bill by 30% over the next two years to generate £300m in savings, potentially impacting up to a quarter of its 16,000 workers. Non-customer facing roles will bear the brunt of the cuts as the business automates key functions through artificial intelligence. To further rein in costs, the firm is pausing full-fibre broadband upgrades beyond existing partner obligations. Instead of building out its own infrastructure, the operator is near an agreement to access BT’s Openreach network.
Key points
Virgin Media O2 intends to eliminate £800m in annual expenditures by 2029 to manage its £…: Virgin Media O2 intends to eliminate £800m in annual expenditures by 2029 to manage its £22bn debt burden.
The company will lean on artificial intelligence to automate network planning, customer s…: The company will lean on artificial intelligence to automate network planning, customer service, and fault management tasks.
Trimming the internal wage bill by 30% within two years forms a core £300m component of t…: Trimming the internal wage bill by 30% within two years forms a core £300m component of the restructuring effort.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
Virgin Media O2 is to cut thousands of jobs in an £800m cost-cutting drive as the telecommunications company aims to tackle its £22bn debt pile.
VMO2, which is jointly owned by Liberty Global and Telefónica, said £300m of the savings target will come from job cuts that will reduce the company’s employee wage bill by 30% over the next two years.
The company did not specify how many jobs this will equate to, but it could be as many as 25% of its 16,000 workforce.
The company, which said that most of the job losses will come from non-customer facing roles, said it intends to increase the use of AI tools in areas including customer service, network planning and fault management.
“While we will give a fuller update on the new strategic plan in the coming months, we are already progressing and making difficult decisions to prioritise investments and reduce costs which includes the size of our workforce,” said the VMO2 chief executive, Lutz Schüler.
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